I'm curious about this rule.
Firstly, let me say that I could fully appreciate rules being in place against people signing up for the purpose of advertising, making threads exclusively for the purpose of advertising, derailing existing threads for the purpose of advertising, or my personal least favourite, private messaging other members purely for the purpose of advertising. I'm sure everyone has had the misfortune of coping with some idiot with a username with five numbers in it and a poorly edited fan character for an avatar sending them "hey do u want to join my new site coolpokemonsprites FIRST 5 PEOPLE TO SIGN UP CAN BE MODS!!!!1" or similar crap at some point in their online lives.
What I don't get is the signature thing. If someone has a significant position on a site, or generally just likes something it makes sense to put it in their profile somewhere; hell, it's not really different to how when you meet someone in real life for the first time, they'll tell you things about themselves like their job and their hobbies.
I was recently pulled up for breaking this rule, about a fortnight ago or so. I referenced the fact that I am a staff member on the forum for a fan project in my signature (note: reference, not even a link). I find the reasoning given to be quite weak. I was told that mentioning other forums could potentially drag people away from PokéBeach.
Because yes, people are going to see someone mention the name of a completely unrelated fanforum with about 15 active members and think, "y'know what, screw PokéBeach, I'm going to this other place and never coming back". For the record, I am not annoyed with the individual moderator who pulled me up at all; they're just doing what they've been told to do. I just think the rules they are having to enforce are pretty pathetic.
This rule becomes more hypocritical when underneath it says that you may link to other forums which have more than 5,000 members. What the heck? Y'know what a lot of these big Pokémon forums with over 5,000 members tend to have in common? They usually cover the same basic grounds as PokéBeach.
If there was any truth in this whole competition argument (read: there isn't) then surely a big forum which does pretty much the same thing as this one would hold MORE of a threat of dragging members away, not less? Y'know? Like how Tesco are more likely to feel threatened in terms of competition by the likes of Sainsbury's and ASDA than the small grocery shop at the end of my road?
I just don't get this rule. At all.
Some of the rules have lost focus over time as the forums have grown and we've made amendments to them for specific situations that have arisen. We're actually rewriting the rules once again and they will debut in probably around a month from now.
